


Breaking Point

by PlotWitch



Series: Suicide (I Understand) [3]
Category: Anita Blake: Vampire Hunter - Laurell K. Hamilton
Genre: F/M, discussion of suicide
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2006-07-22
Updated: 2006-07-22
Packaged: 2019-03-15 21:05:49
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 6
Words: 8,533
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13621668
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PlotWitch/pseuds/PlotWitch
Summary: Edward and Anita have both hit their breaking points, and neither has seen the other since then. But when Edward finally comes to her, they push again. And this time, when the break happens, there’s no coming back.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * Translation into Magyar available: [Töréspont](https://archiveofourown.org/works/13622124) by [Xaveri](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Xaveri/pseuds/Xaveri)



It must have been serendipity.

The gun never fired. It never fired again after that day, not even after breaking it down and seeing that there was nothing wrong with it. It sits now in a safe under my desk, a reminder that even when things are at their worst, there is always something to live for.

My something is now walking up the drive to her house as I watch from a rented car down the street.

It’s been more than two years since I’ve seen her, and the change is palpable. Her hair is shorter, cut off an inch or so beneath her shoulders, curls hanging even with her shoulder blades. Her face has more color, even a hint of a tan, and she is smiling.

I’ve noticed that she smiled a lot more now.

She is no longer under house arrest from her family in a rented town home. Instead she lives in a small house not too far from the river, at the edge of the residential area of the city. It’s painted a sunny yellow and trimmed in white, with a vivid red front door.

There are flowers planted in front, and two cats winding their way about the rails on the porch. She leans down to pat one and scratch the other behind the ears before unlocking the door and going inside. The cats don’t offer to follow her, and she doesn’t offer to let them in.

A rocking chair and a small table sit at one end, and I can see an empty glass and a book there with it. On the other side of the table is a swing that is drifting slowly in the breeze. The pages of the book join it in fluttering.

There are curtains, and through them I can see her move inside. She isn’t paying attention to anything outside and doesn’t look up until she hears the car in the driveway. I sit there for a moment with the engine off, hands on the steering wheel wondering if I should be doing this.

Then I get out, grabbing my overnight bag and closing the door. It has a note of finality, and I can feel the fear knotting up in my stomach. Two years. Will she even speak to me? Or just tell me to leave?

I hear another door close, her front door, and when I come around the garage she’s standing there in front of that bright red door, arms folded across her chest, her face expressionless. Suddenly everything is that much more intense, simply because she is staring at me.

The weight of the bag hanging from its strap on my shoulder. The light breeze that continues to move her swing and play with the pages of her book. The way my short sleeves flutter at my biceps. That one really gets to me, and I have the sudden urge to yank on them, pull them down past my wrists.

I haven’t felt that way in a long time, haven’t felt the need to hide from anyone. But she changes everything, makes me so aware of myself. So aware of her.

I’ve stopped at the stairs, I don’t want to walk up them to her. I just want to look at her, take it all in. the red of the door is framing her, softened by the yellow house. She’s wearing fitted khaki pants that flare slightly at her calves, emphasizing her waist. A white tank top that skims just under her collarbones.

And she’s barefoot, with red-pink toenails peeking out from under the hem of the pants.

I didn’t see it before, when I was watching her from the side. The hair around her face is shorter, with wisps of curls skimming across her face. She’s put the weight that she’d lost back on, she looks… She looks beautiful. And possibly angry, I think as her face alters and I see her eyes widen just a bit.

A smile for her, almost, my hand tightening around the strap on my shoulder. “Hi,” I say. So sophisticated. Quite possibly the stupidest thing I have ever said, much less when it’s the first thing I say to her after two years.

Mentally, I’m kicking myself. But I force myself to remain calm, remain the same as I look at her.

I see her fingers clench at her elbows, nails digging into the skin and flesh stretched pale and taught. Her lower lip is caught between her teeth and she’s worrying it, her eyes look so wide. She looks frightened. Or hopeful. I don’t know which.

“I missed you,” she says, a smile breaking on her face, and then she’s down the few steps and wrapping her arms around my waist.

The strap slips and the bag hits the ground with a thud. I slide my arms around her, burying my face in her hair and breathing deeply. The tension is gone, the fear is fading, and it feels so good to be holding her.

Nothing like last time, I think. I’m not pushing her away, I don’t have to force her to stand on her own. And I’m not planning on killing myself the second she leaves my sight this time. Though if I don’t hold her for a few more minutes I might just die for wanting it.

She pulls back and I bite my tongue against a protest. Her face is even with mine as she stands on the lowest step and looks at me as if she’s trying to memorize my face, compare it to the old memory of me. Then she presses her lips to mine in a hasty kiss before punching me.


	2. Chapter 2

I curse and rub my jaw. “Christ, Anita. If you wanted me to go you could have just said so,” I say as I look at her.

“You dumb ass. Don’t disappear again. I had to stoop to calling Donna to find out how you were.” Her mouth is set and I can see the tension in her jaw. Oh yeah, she’s pissed.

And just when I finally decide that maybe it’s best for me to go she stoops and grabs my bag, then my hand, and pulls me up the stairs and to her door. She glances back over shoulder at me, almost smiling. I very nearly don’t see the faint shadows in her eyes.

“I don’t want you to go,” she says as she opens the door.

There’s a small yap, and I look down. Darting past her foot is a small brown and white blur. A dog. A beagle, to be exact, and she laughs as it sniffs my shoes. I stand there, nonplussed, her hands still in mine, as she laughs at the dog.

“Bear, inside,” she says, laughing.

The look he gives her, I would swear, plainly tells her to kiss off. I can’t blame him, it’s hard to follow firm directions when the giver is laughing. Then he gives what looks to be a dog version of a shrug and trots back inside, hopping up on a couch and sprawling on it.

Anita is still smiling when she leads me in and lets go of my hand. “Let me get you some ice, Edward. I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have hit you,” she says.

I don’t say anything, just look around as she walks off across an open dining room to the kitchen. The house is different than I pictured, very open and airy. Something I wouldn’t have expected from her. The living room and dining room are connected, only differentiated by the way a rug is arranged between them.

Her living room is large, very open with the windows, and arranged more for relaxing than function. There’s a large television against a wall, and two sides of the room are full of windows with occasional pictures hanging between them.

The couch and loveseat aren’t the blue ones from her rented town home of two years ago. Now they are lush tan leather with cream and blue throw pillows. There are matching end tables made of a honey colored wood, and a square coffee table of the same, strewn with magazines and a book. There’s also a box of dog treats on it, partially chewed and ragged.

I hear the clatter of ice being dumped in the kitchen and look that way. The dining room is vaguely formal, but it has more the feel of home to it. The table is a very pale wood that doesn’t match any of the chairs around it. A small square deal, with not an inch of its surface showing. Instead, it’s covered in folded laundry, and mismatched socks.

A smile at that, and at the bookcases around the walls there, lined with paperbacks and stacks of papers. It looks like a home, something I don’t think she’s had before, or at least made for herself. Always before there’s an almost clinical emptiness, sterile neatness.

Something that says I sleep here, but I don’t live here.

Now her house says, shouts even, “I live here, this is my home, my domain. My sanctuary.”

Even her kitchen is pleasant with a comfortable clash of colors and textures strewn about the counter. She has storage containers of sage green ceramic and steel nestled back under cabinets, and baskets of a different weaves and colors and sizes filled with fruit. Even a stack of dishes in the sink, some blue, some yellow, and one large red bowl.

My eyes light on the towel in her hand as I pass into the kitchen. She’s putting ice neatly into the towel, and then I see the match to it hanging on the stove. A white towel, with penguins on it. I smile. I can’t help it, but it’s so Anita that it makes me laugh.

She jumps and turns around, a knife in her hand. And then she lowers it with a sheepish grin. I see the well stocked knife block over her shoulder, and it hits me then that she is unarmed. The knife is obviously pulled form the block, there is one empty slot. And I want to berate her for walking around defenseless.

She must see it on my face, because her smile fades and she turns, sliding the knife easily back into its home. “I’m not the Executioner, anymore, Edward,” she says, almost defensively. “I walked away from it.”

And hearing it shakes me badly. Because the Anita I knew would never walk away from it, it was her calling, her way of righting the wrongs in the world. But then, I think, the Anita I knew wouldn’t have slit her wrists, either.

She turns back to me and holds out the neatly wrapped towel filled with ice, and I put it to my jaw without a word. I don’t know what to say to her, I don’t even know what to ask her. I have so many questions, and none singling themselves out from the hoard.

She saves me the trouble, she simply starts talking. Which is a change, because once she would have been content in silence. But silence isn’t comfortable any more, especially when the last time we talked we were both suicidal.

“I don’t do executions anymore; I don’t even do much with the pack and pard. Just kind of hang out sometimes,” she says as she nervously runs her hand over the counter before forcing it to be still. “I don’t even work more than three nights a week. Bert is too scared that he might push me over the edge and then he’d have to find a new animator.”

She slips past me and heads into the living room, sitting down and curling her feet up on the couch. The dog, Bear, immediately bounces up and onto her lap, where he settles down as she pets him absently.

“I’m doing better,” she says with a small smile. “I see my therapist once every other week, and I talk to Donna every Friday.”

I raise my eyebrows at this, because Donna is the last person I expect Anita to talk to. I silently slide down onto the love seat and watch her as she continues.

“You just left, Edward. I had to make sure you were okay.” Again a smile, then, “And Donna kept track of you for me until you moved last year. Now I just check up on her and the kids. Did you know Peter had a girlfriend?”

“No, I didn’t know. I haven’t talked to Donna since before I came to St. Louis the last time,” I say. It’s the first thing I’ve said to her since she dragged me inside, and my voice sounds odd and out of place in her domain.

She smiles again as she looks down at the dog. “So you speak. I really am sorry for hitting you,” she says as she looks up again. “I didn’t hurt you, did I?”

I shake my head, the ice and towel forgotten in my hand. I’m lucky, she put it in a plastic bag before wrapping it with the towel, otherwise it would be dripping by now. I sit it on the coffee table and lean back, again feeling very conscious of my short sleeves.

If I had thought about it, I would have at least thrown a long sleeved shirt over my white tee, but I hadn’t exactly planned on feeling so uncomfortable with her. Always before I’d felt completely normal, not caring what anyone thought. Maybe it was just the fact that I hadn’t seen her in so long.

Or that she carried her scars with a certain grace, almost forgetting that they were there. Because she really did forget, it was easy to see in the way she raised her hand to brush her hair out of her face, not even noticing the scars that decorated her wrists.

“Are you okay, Edward?” she’s asking, and I snap myself out of my thoughts, trying to pay attention to what she’s saying. I hadn’t even noticed that she’s stood up and walked over to me, where she stands now, close enough to touch.

It’s something I’ve dreamt of for two years. Touching her. Just being close enough to touch her. She’s reaching hand out to my face, her hand warm and soft against my cheek. She’s smiling again.

“I really have missed you, Edward,” she’s saying as she leans down and touches her lips to mine softly.

My hands are tangling in her hair and I pull her closer, drinking in her surprised laugh as I tug too hard and she lands in my lap. Her arms go around my neck, fingers threading through my hair, and I can’t seem to stop kissing her. She tastes so warm and sweet, like chocolate or honey or anything that’s perfect in the world.

We’re only interrupted by the sound of chimes through the house, and she jerks away cursing. “Oh God, oh fuck,” I can hear her saying as she jumps off my lap and tries to smooth her hair back and look as if we weren’t just kissing each other senseless.

Her face is bright red and flushed, and her eyes are glued to the wall behind me. Even as I turn to look, I know that I don’t want to see, know that the curtains aren’t drawn and whoever is there was watching, could see. But I do look, and I regret it.

Outside the window is a tall and no longer gangly Josh who is grinning from ear to ear, and behind him I can see what I can only assume are Anita’s father and step-mother.

I look back to Anita who’s heading around the couch, but has caught my hand in hers and is dragging me along again. We reach the door and once safely hidden behind it she pulls my face to hers again, kissing me swiftly before letting me go.

“We’ll finish this later. For now, you’re going to have dinner with my family.”

The shock must be flaming on my face, because she is laughing. “I can’t have dinner with your family, Anita,” I say desperately. “I’ll just go and come back later.”

“No!” she says vehemently. “The last time I saw you, you walked away and didn’t come back for two years. You’re staying. Just act normal.”

My heart beats a little faster as she says that I’m staying, but I can’t ignore the fact that I don’t know how to act normal. “I’m not normal.”

She kisses my cheek, and I can’t get past the changes in her. How much more open she is. “Just be yourself, Edward. If they can’t deal, too bad. I like you, anyway,” she says with a smile.

Then she opens the door.


	3. Chapter 3

I’m relieved to know that some things haven’t changed. Anita is still more adept at ordering take out than she is at cooking, though Judith instructs me that Anita makes a fabulous fettuccine alfredo. Her words, not mine, though I take Anita up on the offer of her cooking it for me sometime.

Judith seems to like me, Josh is curious—probably from the last time he saw me. Her father, though, has noticed my own scars. I’ve seen him staring numerous times, but continue to only meet his eyes until he is forced to either look away or ask.

He looks away.

It’s easier to fall into old habits, but I catch Anita’s glare from next to me. Her hand slips under the table and to my thigh, squeezing hard, and I wince and smile. I really don’t want to piss Anita off, not tonight at least. Maybe in the morning, but not tonight.

So instead I start joining in the conversation, listening with on ear and ignoring the larger part of it, until I hear Josh mention that I was at Anita’s house a while back. I know what he’s talking about, so does she. And we glance at each other, both wondering if Josh will say something about how she told him to leave.

_I’ll have plenty of better things to do._

I remember the line vividly, and from the blush creeping up her neck, so does she. But no one says anything about, instead I’m faced with her father. And from the look on his face, he doesn’t like me much. Of course, it doesn’t help that he saw me with her on my lap.

No, that doesn’t help at all.

“So how did you and Anita meet, Edward?” he asks, his hand deceptively loose on his knife and fork.

The image of him leaping at me and burying them in my throat pops into my head, and for a moment I consider lying to him, telling him that we met in some mundane way. Like at a bookstore. Or the mall. I don’t want to have to hurt Anita’s father, but I also don’t want him killing me because I kissed his little girl.

I don’t really want to have anything to do with Anita’s father, as a matter of fact.

Anita glances at me, but doesn’t say anything, just continues eating her food calmly waiting for me to answer. For a moment I wonder if how much her family knows about the things she’s done, the work she used to do. I feel that growing ball of fear again, that I’ll misstep and say something I shouldn’t.

But no, Anita told me to be myself. And there probably isn’t too much that they don’t know, since they seem to have involved themselves in her life again. So I smile at him.

“We met on a vampire hunt about eight years back,” I say as I calmly take another bite of my pasta. “We were going after the same kiss, and decided to team up.”

“So you’re a friend?” Judith, this time.

Anita answers for me. “A very good friend, Judith,” she says with a smile directed to me.

I catch the look on her father’s face, and I know now that he doesn’t like me at all. It may have been different if we had met under easier circumstances. Hell, I would rather have met him after killing someone. He’d probably have liked me more then.

His eyes narrow, and he glares at me. “So you taught her how to kill vampires?”

I shrug. “I taught her better, safer ways.”

“Did you teach her to do that,” he asks as he reaches out and grabs my wrist, flipping the scars up to the light.

Two years isn’t long enough. Decidedly not long enough, I think. The man doesn’t know what he’s doing, I tell myself. He has no clue that a mental state never heals all the way, and I pull my hand away, laying it flat against the top of the table to hide the sudden shaking that comes over it.

Judith and Josh are both staring, Judith with surprise and Josh with more than a little sympathy. I know he knows about me, how I feel towards Anita. I know he saw it two years ago.

And Anita. Poor Anita, whose face is covered with shock and dismay, staring at her father and glancing at me. She’s trying to read my face, but there’s nothing there for her to see. I’m very good at hiding things, especially from people who have more stupidity than intelligence.

I shake my head, staring at him evenly, hiding the trembling that wants to race up my arms. Hiding the growing sense of dread inside, the impending madness that I can never truly outrace. I wonder if this is how Anita felt when she decided to kill herself, or if it my own special brand of insanity.

Then I answer.

“No.”

One word. One small, inconsequential word. There’s nothing else I need to say, and there’s no reason for me to stay, I decide and stand up, hands going very quickly to my sides to rest firmly there and to _stay still_. Anita moves to stand but I shake my head.

“I’ll see you, Anita,” I say with a faint smile.

Then I head for her door as quickly as I can move, not even stopping to grab my bag, thankful that the keys to the car are still in my pocket. I make it all the way out and am unlocking the door when I hear her voice.

“Edward, wait,” she’s calling.

I ignore her, sliding in and slamming the door, jamming the key into the ignition and thanking whoever is listening that her family all parked on the road and didn’t block me in. I’m sliding the car into gear when her fist bounces off the passenger window, her face angry and scared peering through.

“Edward, please don’t leave like this,” she’s saying, and I stop my hand where it sits on the gear shift.

I turn the car off, and get back out. She’s around the car before I’m fully out, and then grabbing onto me and hugging me, whispering, “Please don’t leave me again, please Edward, you understand, they don’t.”

I take her face in my hands and tilt it up to mine, kissing her softly on the forehead. “I know they don’t understand, but they love you and they’re trying.”

It’s a regular Dr. Phil, and I can taste the bitterness in my mouth and throat, the sour flavor of bile rising. Her father is already blaming me for Anita’s mental state. And I find myself shaking as she holds me. I can’t seem to stop, and she’s looking at me frightened.

I push her away as gently as I’m able and turn around, pressing my hands into the side of the car, willing myself to stop shivering and shaking. It doesn’t work, and it’s rising inside me. My eyes are wide and wild and I can’t breathe.

A mistake, I’m thinking, it was a mistake to come here. Then suddenly I’m thinking it, I’m saying it, over and over again, “It’s a mistake, I shouldn’t have come. Should have stayed away, shouldn’t come back.”

I can hear her talking to me, asking me who she needs to call, but there’s no one and I can’t think. I’m fumbling with the car door and desperately trying to get inside, turn it on, to run again. Because that’s all I seem to be able to do, is run from this insanity that lives inside me.

There’s no one I can talk to, it’s too dangerous, and doctor/patient confidentiality doesn’t prevent them from having me arrested and committed if they learn that I’ve killed people. No, there’s no hope for me, there’s nothing for me but fear and loneliness inside my own personal hell.

I see her as a vague shadow in the rear-view mirror as I drive away, a twisted smile pasted to my face and madness in my mind. She’s standing there, alone, staring after me as I run again.


	4. Chapter 4

Two years is a long time.

The three days that I spend in a small hotel in Saint Charles feel like hell. Worse than hell. The only things that I have with me are my license and a credit card. Which means that there’s no shortage of money, but it also means that I’ve given Anita three days to overcome her sensibilities and rifle through my overnight bag.

Sooner or later I have to go get it, go see her. Talk to her, try and explain. But I don’t want to, and the drive back to St. Louis is long and silent. The only sounds are my thoughts as they crash into one another in unpleasant discord.

At least it’s warm, I think as I pull into her driveway and park. Because I don’t have my lock pick set on me, and the house is dark. No one answers when I knock, and I sit down on the top step to wait for her. The sun is hot and I lean my head into my hands, letting it beat down on the back of my neck.

This wait is even harder, because at the end of it I know I’ll be face to face with her. And her questions. I know she’ll have them. She always does, even if she knows I won’t give her answers. At least this time she won’t realize that I have no other recourse.

Lying to her is too painful to contemplate.

I don’t think she’ll go off the deep end again, but I won’t take the chance of hurting her like that ever again. Never, because I’ve had two years to think on it. More than enough time to realize that sometimes you have to be honest.

I’m still thinking about it when headlights cut through the falling darkness, illuminating me where I sit, then cut off. I hear her footsteps and the car door as she gets out and starts toward me. The sudden silence as she stops at the bottom step.

“Please don’t leave again,” she says.

I look up, pain contorting my face. “I can’t make that promise,” is all I say.

She takes my hand and leads me inside, unlocking the door and dropping her purse on the small sideboard next to it. I glance around as she turns on a few lights and moves to close the heavier curtains that the pale sheer hides. Nothing looks different, even the dog is sprawled on the couch as he was before.

Until I look at the coffee table. Before it had been covered in the signs of home. Now it was covered in madness and death. She has emptied my bag, it sits empty next to the loveseat. The contents are neatly arranged on the table.

A notebook, a change of clothes. A picture of Anita. A small paper-wrapped box, still sealed. My gun, with the clip dropped and laid next to it, the single bullet gleaming in the soft light. I turn and look at her, and I see the fear and worry on her face. It almost makes me smile. She does care about me, at least.

But even now, I can still hear her voice from years prior. _“I don’t love you. I just want you to know that.”_

It still hurts, that memory.

She walks past me, barely brushing against me, and sits down on the floor behind the table. One of her hands goes to the gun, the other to the clip. She looks at them, then shoves the clip in, pulling the slide back and looking at me.

“Are you planning on killing yourself?” she says, voice dangerously empty, face pale and drawn. The easy happiness from three days ago is gone. And again, I’m the one responsible.

I shake my head. “I can’t.”

“But you want to.” A statement, like she doesn’t dare ask.

I look away as I nod my head. I hear a sharply drawn breath, a shuddering sigh. Then a click and slide as she drops the clip again. Another as she lays it on the table, and I finally look at her. She’s staring at the gun, not looking at anything else, just it.

“Why?” is all she asks.

I slide down onto the couch, leaning back and staring up at the ceiling with my hands folded across my chest. Why. Such a simple question, such a complicated answer. I’m not even sure how to begin, and am just beginning to form an answer in my mind when her voice cuts the silence again.

“I’m worried about you, Edward. I’m better. Or getting there,” she amends. “You’re not. You’re still…”

“Crazy?” I ask.

She laughs. “No. you’ve always been crazy.” I tilt my head up to look at her, raising an eyebrow. “Well you are! Who else would hunt lycanthropes because humans were too easy?”

Now I laugh. I real and true laugh that bursts forth unexpected. Surprise is etched across my face, I can feel it, and the sad look she’s been wearing passes her features again. Like she’s sorry that I am surprised at my laugh.

“Broken is more like,” she says.

I think on it a moment. There’s a certain beauty to the word when I apply it to myself, and a ring of truth. It’s as close as any, I suppose. I nod.

“Did you ever tell your therapist about how you killed vampires without an order of execution?

She nods, a nervous look on her face. “He told the police. I had to prove that they were all self defense.” She shrugs. “I did. Kind of.”

I don’t ask. I don’t even want to know how she kind of proved it. I expect that her friends on the force buried the problem so deep that it won’t see light until the end of the next century. Because she has friends like that, that love her and care for her and want to help her. Now.

“And if someone were to find out that I killed for money?” I ask, looking at her.

She flushes, a creeping hint of pink rising from beneath the collar of her shirt. “I hadn’t thought of that,” she mutters.

“I have.”

“So you haven’t talked to anyone?” she says.

I smile a little. “I’m talking to you now.”

She sits back for a moment, then stands. “Do you want something to drink? Coffee?”

I nod and get up to follow her. She kicks her shoes off, dainty heeled sandals, on her way to the kitchen. She’s acting more careless again, more carefree. It makes me happier to see her at ease. Not so worried. Of course, walking behind her would make any man happy. Or at least it should.

She’s wearing an off-white skirt matched with a green blouse. The sandals are the same white color, and look intriguingly stark against the darker wood floor. I watch her as she reaches into a cabinet and pulls down the coffee, not saying anything as she grinds the beans and sets them to drip.

She turns back to me once that’s done, leans against the counter. “You said that you can’t kill yourself. Why?”

“Because someone won’t let me,” I answer.

“Who?” she says as she slides up onto the counter. She slips a little, her height leaving her at a disadvantage, and I step forward and grab her at the waist, easily lifting her back up.

She smiles up at me, her hands sliding to cover mine, so that I can’t let go of her. My mouth opens slightly and I lean forward a bit, wanting to kiss her. I can see that she wants it too, eyes heavy and face upturned. I shake my head and jerk back.

I can’t kiss her. If I do I know I won’t be able to stop, and that wouldn’t be good right now. Instead I step back and don’t touch her, wondering if she’ll ask me to kiss her, readying myself to say no.

She doesn’t ask it, instead repeats the first question. “Who won’t let you kill yourself?”

I smile. “I don’t know.” The answer is that simple. “God, maybe. Karma, whoever. That gun won’t fire.”

“There’s nothing wrong with it,” she says, and I know she broke it down at least once I found the same thing I did. Absolutely nothing.

“I know. But it refused to fire when I tried to use it.”

“So you tried and it didn’t fire?”

“Hasn’t since,” I say as I turn to the window and look out into darkness. “Believe me, I’ve tried.”

I hear the rustle of her skirt as she slides of the counter. “I believe you,” she says.

I turn and see her getting two coffee mugs down and pouring the coffee. I come up behind her and reach around to grab one mug. She turns quickly, looking up at me, body pressed against mine, and I swallow whatever it is that I was going to say.

My arms go around her, more on automatic than actual thought. She feels so good there, with me holding her, and she leans up to my face on tiptoe. Her mouth slides past mine and to my ear.

“I won’t let you kill yourself, either, Edward,” she says. “I can think of much better things to do with you than that.”


	5. Chapter 5

I can’t think of anything to say to it, my mind has completely shut down. I pull her closer, whispering her name as I kiss her. She leans into me as thought she’s been dying for me to kiss her, to touch her, and smile against her mouth as I deepen the kiss.

Her hands wind their way up about my neck and her mouth opens, letting my tongue slip in, tasting her. She tastes warm and slightly bitter with the coffee, but there’s that underlying hint of honey that makes my stomach go tight and tense. She sighs and lets her head fall back, and I move my mouth to her throat, trying to see if she tastes like honey everywhere, and not just her mouth.

Her hands slide up to my hair, tugging slightly as I dip lower, kissing the curve of one breast through the thin material of her shirt. She gasps and arches her back, pushing her breast at me harder, and then she whimpers.

“Please,” she says. “Please, Edward, don’t stop.”

A soft sigh then a gasp as my teeth scrape almost roughly over one nipple. “Oh, God,” she whispers. Then, “If you love me, don’t stop. Please don’t stop.”

But I do. If I love her, I think. God this is so fucked up. If I love her, I wouldn’t have her pressed into a counter top, ready to fuck her like there’s no tomorrow. If I love her.

I back away, rubbing my hands roughly against my jeans. She’s watching me now, her eyes heavy with desire, and her face confused. And hurt. So hurt, and it it’s like a knife to my heart when I see that look on her face.

“Anita, I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have…” but I can’t say it. I wanted to, I still want to. How can I apologize for it when it wouldn’t be true?

“It’s alright,” she says, tugging at her shirt. The wet spot where my mouth was is painfully apparent, as is that sudden tightness in my jeans. But she doesn’t notice it, she’s too busy looking anywhere but me. And I can still see the hurt.

It has a distinct impression on me, and the arousal that was so demanding minutes ago is now gone, utterly. And I take a step toward her, but I don’t know what to do, what to say. She looks up at me and I can see the beginnings of tears in her eyes.

“Do you still love me?” she asks, hesitant and afraid.

I smile a little, remembering the last time we veered to this subject. Where she offered herself to me, and I chose to push her away, to make her stand by herself. And chose to end it for myself.

_I don’t love you. I just want you to know that._

“Yes,” I breathe.

There are no other words that I can think of, and her tears well a little more, enough to send them burning down her cheeks. She raises a hand and wipes furiously at them, eyes leaving mine as she looks away and down.

“Then why not?” she whispers.

“Oh, Anita,” I say. “I’m sorry. I can’t make you love me if you don’t. You can’t make you heart feel something that it won’t. That’s what I want from you.”

I scrub a hand over my face and sigh. “I am sorry, Anita,” I whisper as I turn and go to the living room. A few careful swipes and the coffee table is cleared, my things back in the bag, and I am ready to go.

I have to go, before I hurt her any worse than I fear I already have. Before I hurt myself. I stop, turn back, and take my Beretta out of the bag, then lay it carefully on the table. I won’t need it; it won’t do any good, even if I tried to use it anyway.

When I turn back around, she’s standing right in front of me. She looks beautiful, even with tear streaks down her cheeks, even with disheveled clothes. Absolutely beautiful. My breath catches in my chest, and I force myself to breath around the sudden lump growing in my throat.

“But Edward,” she says softly, a faint smile on her lips. “I already do.”

It takes me more than a moment to process it, next to forever for it to go from my ears to my brain, and then into a comprehensible language. _I already do._ She already does. Love me.

She smiles at me, at my confusion, at my surprise. Her hands come up to my face, cupping my cheeks and steering my mouth to hers. “I already love you,” she whispers as she kisses me.

And in that moment time stops. The bag slides from shoulder, hits the floor with a thud that no one hears. We’re too close, trying to touch, kiss, feel, love one another. My hands slide under her shirt, pushing it until she raises her arms and lets me pull it over her head.

She hisses slightly as my mouth skims her neck before sealing over hers again, tongue darting in and twining with hers. Her hands are hot against my stomach, and she’s not so gentle as she tries to pull my shirt off. There’s the faint sound of fabric ripping and I let her go long enough to yank it over my head.

We’re stumbling towards the couch, the dog nowhere to be seen. Not that I blame him, considering the sounds we were making. Were I him, I’d have run too.

The skirt has to go but my fingers aren’t catching the zipper right, it’s more delicate than mine and I wince as I hear a pop when it comes out of seam. She laughs and the skirt falls, followed by my jeans that she easily undoes. Then I’m on the couch and she’s above me, straddling me, grinding against me and I feel like the world is spinning.

“Anita,” I groan as she reaches behind her to unhook her bra.

It’s off, and she’s soft and sweet. Her breasts are beautiful and I suckle one as she gasps, her hips arching against me. Honey, she tastes like honey, and I slide my hands under the edge of her panties and into her, my thumb lightly pressing against her clitoris as she gasps.

Her hands tighten on my shoulders and she shudders, coming already. I take a deep breath, knowing that if I’m not careful I won’t be far behind. She shifts and leans to the side, rolling my to be on top of her, agilely skimming her panties down her hips and tossing them away.

She reaches for me, trying to tug my boxers off, to get at my straining erection, but I push her back shaking my head. “Not yet,” I say as I kneel above her.

She looks at me with a curious tilt to her eyebrows as I slide her around so that I am now on the floor and her legs are balanced over my shoulders. I only smile at her as I press my mouth to the heat between her legs and flick my tongue out. She gasps and I smile against her.

Her thighs are tight around my head and I slide my hands up to part her flesh and slide my tongue into her, licking and lapping as she writhes for me. I slide one finger in, then another as she cries out my name, saying, “Please, need you, want you, now!”

I move back up to her mouth, tongue dipping in as I smile. “You really do taste like honey,” I whisper as I push my boxers down and kick them off. Then I’m pressing against her, into her, and I groan as her wet heat sheathes me, tightening and very nearly making me lose my control.

I’m buried inside her, my groin pressing against her pubis, grinding into her clitoris as she sighs and then kisses me again. “Please,” she whispers, “Make love to me?”

A pleaded question and I smile. I begin to move inside her, long even strokes as I move. I can feel myself rubbing across the sensitive flesh and her body shivers. I won’t hold out much longer, I think, as I move faster and faster in response to her throaty cries.

She tightens around me, body throbbing and burning against me, and then I catch her mouth with mine, silencing the cries and swallowing them as she comes again. This time I come with her, velvet heat making me throb and trying to get as deep inside her as I can.

Her legs are around my waist, pulling me closer, and I groan into her mouth, an incoherent word that is lost along with her own.

I collapse against her, head next to hers, arms holding me just a little to save her form my full weight. She’s breathing hard, matching my own labored breaths, and smiling. I am hard put not to smile myself, and instead I only brush her sweat damp curls from her face and press a kiss to each eyelid, savoring each tender gesture as if it were a priceless treasure.

“Do you believe me now, Edward?” she whispers into the still room.

I smile at her. “I don’t have to believe you, I trust you. I love you.”

“Mmm,” she says as she pulls me back to her. “Then love me again.”


	6. Chapter 6

It’s not quite dawn when I wake, sheets tangled around my legs and Anita draped against me. Sometime in the night we moved to her bed, but I don’t know or care when. She’s lying on my arm, one of hers thrown across my chest and the other curled in to hers. On leg is wrapped around mine.

It’s comfortable, oddly enough. Pleasant, reassuring to hear her breathing deeply as she sleeps beside me.

I move to get up and she protests in wordless murmurs, her head burrowing into the crook where my arm meets my shoulder. I kiss her softly, saying, “I’ll be back, I’m not leaving.”

She doesn’t say anything, only drifts back into the dreamless sleep she enjoys. I take the sheet and spread it out across her, kissing her cheek as I leave.

My pants are still thrown haphazardly on the floor, and I pause to put them on before going to the front door. The dog, Bear, follows me, whining as I move to go outside without him. I shrug and let him dart past me and into the cool morning air.

The swing is empty and drifting slightly, and it rocks more as I sit in it, pushing every now and then with a foot to keep the motion going. Bear is digging in the yard, chasing imaginary bugs. But not barking.

It’s peaceful.

_I’m_ peaceful.

For the first time in eight years, I am completely at peace. It’s such an unexpected realization, but I only smile. Despite everything, all of my careful planning gone to waste, I have what I want, need, and I’m content.

I sigh, and then hear the low creak of the door opening. It’s Anita. She’s wearing sweat pants and a shirt, and comes to sit beside me, watching Bear run around in the yard. My arm goes around her shoulders, and she leans into it like we’ve done this a million times before.

Yes, content.

“The therapist made me get him, you know,” she says as the first hints of light begin to peek over the horizon. “Said that having a real pet gave you someone else to live for.”

I smile. “I trust that you have more to live for than a dog.”

She smiles at me, head turning up to mine. “I waited for you for two years, Edward. If I wasn’t planning on living for you, I’d be dead right now.”

I kiss her gently at that. “And I chased you for eight. Funny how things work out.”

“Yeah,” is all she says.

We wait until the sun is fully above the horizon before calling to the dog and going back inside. I have visions of fresh coffee, and start making it after I replay the motions of Anita the night before. She doesn’t even raise an eyebrow that I know where everything is by rote, and only grabs two mugs and sits at the dining room table to wait.

“Edward,” she says as the coffee drips. “Why did you come back? When you showed up, why did you come?”

I just glance at her. “I came for you.”

“No, really, why’d you come?”

I laughed. She was perfectly serious. And maybe my answer was a little too simplistic. So I go get my bag from the living room where I forgot about it the night before, bring it back, dump it on the table looking for something.

I small, brown paper wrapped package. Its maybe two inches square, looks like a box of ammunition. Which isn’t odd, since the outer box is an old ammo box. Keeps the leather from scuffing.

I toss it to her and grab the mugs. The coffee isn’t done dripping, but there’s enough that I can make two cups for us, and if I’m careful I won’t let any spill. “Open it,” I say, and she throws me a puzzled look.

“Just open it, Anita. It doesn’t bite.”

Paper rips and crinkles and she wrinkles her nose. “Bullets. Thanks, Edward,” she says dryly.

“ _Open it_ ,” I say again as I sit back down and push her mug across the table to her.

And she does, leg propped in the chair, hair falling in her face. She tosses the torn box at me and then just looks at what she holds in her hand. A small, black leather covered box. No markings, no logos. But still, she looks up at me, eyes wide and face indescribable.

“Edward?” she asks. “Is it…”

She doesn’t finish the sentence, and I think for a moment that maybe I shouldn’t have told her, given it to her. But the dice have already been rolled, and I must see this through to completion. I smile at her, my usual blank smile, hiding the apprehension I’m feeling.

“Just open it, Anita. Please,” I add softly. “Please.”

She does, slowly flipping the lid up and gasping. Her eyes are even wider now, and she breathes my name. “Edward.” there is no other sound to me but the sound of her voice. And she looks at me.

“It’s just a ring,” I say to the girlish delight on her face.

“But you got it for me,” she answers softly. “It’s beautiful.”

And it is. Even I have enough brains to admit that the ring is stunning. A flawless diamond, just over a carat, channel set into a platinum band, so that it won’t interfere with her usual routines. It had cost a small fortune, but it was well spent.

I’d do it over again, every day for the rest of her life, if only to see that smile on her face.

I get up, go around to her, and kneel on both knees. My hands grasp hers, the box now sitting in her lap as she holds to the ring and my hands, staring into my eyes. She’s crying, and I don’t know why, but all the same I kiss her teary cheeks.

“I made a mistake when I didn’t tell you sooner, I don’t want that happen again,” I find myself saying. “I came back for you; I don’t want to lose you like I did before. I don’t want to be someone who pops in and out of your life.

“I want to be the other half of it.”

She’s smiling through the tears now, and she leans forward and kisses me. My hands go to her face, thumbs rubbing the hated tears away. If I have my way, she’ll never cry again.

She smiles at me and slides the ring onto her finger. It fits perfectly, as I knew it would. And then it hits me. She put the ring on.

“Does that mean yes?” I ask, unable to hide the uncertainty in my voice.

She nods. “Yes,” she says, “Oh yes.”

I kiss her again, smiling as I do so. “I’ll love you forever, you know,” I say as she runs her fingers through my hair, smiling at me.

She kisses me again and I smile at the light flashing from the ring against the table, from where the sun hits it. Oh yes, forever.

“Forever,” she whispers, “is not long enough.”


End file.
